Psychology

INSIDE A MIND WITH PTSD

Posted on by vlaw759

Today’s blog is written by a fellow writer who wishes to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.

Among the many odd things I’ve done in my life, one that has had the most lasting impact is being a linguistic and cultural ambassador posted to a country that shall remain nameless here. Because of various regional disputes, a massive prison outbreak, less-than-polite national elections and regime changes, and a general culture of aggressiveness, I found myself living in conditions that were much more dangerous than I’d been led to expect.

When I eventually returned home, among the souvenirs and keepsakes I brought back with me, I found in my luggage a serious case of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). As Vivian’s blog is for writers and writing, I thought perhaps a guided tour inside the warped and broken mind of a person with PTSD might be of interest to you all.

Please keep hands and arms inside the cart at all times, and don’t feed the negativity gremlins as we go past.

Very Important Disclaimer: Neither Vivian Lawry nor this guest author are psychiatric professionals or are qualified to provide medical assistance. The information contained herein is not intended to be used for diagnostic or treatment purposes in any way, shape, or form.

This is basically what the inside of my mind looks like.
(It’s actually the Soul Cairn from the Dawnstar plug-in to Elder Scrolls IV: Skyrim by Bethesda.)

Before the ride begins in earnest, you can look to your left for some basic information about PTSD. The most common association people have with PTSD is of veterans of military combat, but it can result from many different experiences, including natural disasters, abusive relationships, assault (sexual or otherwise), prolonged insecurity, traffic collisions, and so on. People can even develop second-hand PTSD from witnessing these events in other people’s lives. A patient may develop PTSD immediately after an event, but sometimes symptoms don’t appear until well after the event itself.

Common symptoms of PTSD. As soon as I can cultivate a substance abuse problem, I’ll have BINGO! (That’s how it works, right?)

With all of these possibilities, there are loads of ways in which the inclusion of a character experiencing PTSD can enrich, complicate, drive, or drive, or even resolve your writing. There is a lot of information available about the causes and effects of PTSD, but remember that each case is different. Every person will have different triggers, coping mechanisms, involuntary reactions, etc.

You may notice the cart shaking violently as we enter the tunnel; this is simply the result of uneven neural pathways, nothing to be alarmed about.

As a writer and a reader, I’ve found myself thinking of ways in which my warped thoughts and behaviors could fit in with other common narrative techniques. I have also found some absolutely infuriating stories out there in which a character has a traumatic experience (usually rape or sexual assault) simply so the hero can come to the rescue or to establish a villain as a villain… and victimized character goes right back to skipping through the tulips. Don’t be that writer!

by Albin Brunovsky

If you look out on either side of the cart, you may be able to make out (through the erratic strobe lights and general gloom) a few of the ways common behaviors of characters with PTSD could be very useful in your writing. Please remember that these are only glimpses from one mind and do not necessarily reflect every patient. Also, hold on to the lap bar as there are some sharp curves coming up.

Unreliable Narrator: What I see and hear is always filtered through the PTSD in my mind. If a story is told from the point of view of a character with PTSD, this is a good way to demonstrate the disconnect from reality. If another character is getting information from a character with PTSD, it could skew everyone’s opinions and affect the plot moving forward.

What it feels like to walk down the street.
  • Social interactions are a minefield of side-stepping physical attacks (handshakes, hugs, pats on the back).
  • Random strangers only ever approach me with violent intentions, such as petting my dog, asking me to reach something off a high shelf, or walking past me on a narrow sidewalk.
  • People waiting in parked cars are obviously armed, most likely on the lookout for potential victims.
  • Anyone who stands in a doorway must be trying to block the exit or prevent escape.
  • An approach from behind must be someone trying to sneak up on me, and anyone who surprises me from behind is an attacker and will be punched.
  • This isn’t helped by chronic sleep deprivation giving me the same symptoms as early-onset Alzheimer’s: How can I be trusted to provide accurate information when I lose time and forget everything?

Mistaken Motivations: Objectively, I know there is nothing wrong with mental illness, nor should there be any shame attached. Still, I try to hide it or play it off as no big deal. As a result, family, friends, and strangers all have reason to assume my coping behaviors are something very different. Having a character reveal midway through or near the end of a story that their actions were motivated by coping mechanisms could be a plot twist, a clue for investigators, a reset of other characters’ attitudes, or plenty of other ways of adding narrative interest.

  • Friends frequently ask if I’m cold because I can’t stop shaking.
  • Constantly scanning for threats and possible exits sometimes makes me look like I’m trying to find someone or looking for an excuse to leave a boring conversation.
  • Being hyper-vigilant in general makes me look twitchy, itchy, over-caffeinated, or paranoid, depending on who is providing their opinion.
  • My brother thought he’d done something to offend me when I repeatedly moved away from him or left the room when he entered.
  • After I repeatedly panicked and cancelled plans at the last minute, many friends thought I was just blowing them off.
  • Arriving late to social gatherings, hiding in the corner, and leaving early have all led acquaintances to assume I’m too stuck-up to mingle.
  • To make it through particularly important events that I cannot miss, I’ve sometimes taken extra doses of anti-anxiety medication. My slurred speech, unfocused gaze, less than ideal balance, and inability to follow conversation looks an awful lot like I’ve shown up to the baptism or wedding drunk as a skunk.
  • I escape to the bathroom a lot when things get overwhelming, sometimes for extended periods of time. Most of my family now thinks I have severe digestive issues.

Affects in My Life: In order to be diagnosed as a disorder (the D in PTSD) a patient must have symptoms severe enough to disrupt their ability to live a normal life. A character who develops PTSD midway through a narrative would almost certainly show changes in behaviors. These are some of mine.

This is perfectly normal.
  • Chronic insomnia and nightmares: Years later, I still sleep in a separate room from my spouse, with the lights on, with distracting or soothing music playing… and I still manage to wake the household at least once a month by screaming in my sleep.
  • My ability to concentrate and complete tasks on time severely impacted my job. Twice, I responded to a coworker trying to get my attention by panicking and attacking them. Going into the office grew increasingly difficult as it became harder to leave the house. I am now unemployed.
  • Weeks at a time go by when I cannot leave my house, even to go into the backyard. I feel threatened every time I open the door.
  • Side effects from different medications I’ve tried have included weight gain, headaches, heartburn, memory loss, drowsiness, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam. These could also be examples of mistaken motivations!
  • I no longer participate in hobbies I once did, especially anything that involves leaving the house or interacting with other people.
  • Suicide and suicide attempts are very common among patients with PTSD.

Anxiety Attacks, Panic Attacks, and Flashbacks: These can be triggered by almost anything, depending on the person and the situation. Smelling cigarette smoke, walking on an icy sidewalk, being in a room of people speaking another language I only halfway understand… any of these can send me spiraling. Being under stress increases the chance that something will hit that switch.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we’d like to remind you at this time that motion sickness bags can be found under your seats and to hold on tightly.

It doesn’t look quite as cute when I do it.
  • Anxiety or Panic Attack: It’s really bizarre to be terrified and not know why. Why is my heart racing? Why can’t I breathe? Why can I not stop screaming? When I have an anxiety attack, I don’t think rationally but I can speak and respond to people around me. When I have a panic attack, it feels like I’m about to die. I can’t feel anything but the absolute terror that completely takes over my body. Usually, I am able to leave a situation when I feel one of these about to happen so that I can mentally implode in the peace and quiet of a public urinal.
  • Flashback: These are even more bizarre. Anxiety attacks often segue into flashbacks. I am completely unaware of my surroundings and respond to threats that are long gone. I’ll switch languages to talk to people who aren’t there; I’ll be able to smell the food or feel the cold from specific memories. Sometimes, I have flashbacks that aren’t tied to precise events, more an amalgamation of similar threats that get lumped together in my head. It’s very embarrassing to come out of it and realize that I’m hiding behind a clothes rack in Target, desperately fighting off the attack of a stiff coat sleeve.

Treatment Options: There are many different types of treatments for PTSD, with varying degrees of accessibility, cost, success, and side effects. I’ve tried just about everything: some worked, some did not, some worked at first and then stopped. I can’t stress enough that every person will respond differently to different treatments. The information here is simply what undergoing the treatments felt like for me.

He still can’t change the printer cartridges.
  • Therapy Animal: My dog trained himself to be a therapy dog because he was just that awesome. Before I was eventually laid off, my boss let me bring my dog into the office with me. He learned to impose himself between me and anyone getting too close to my personal space. When I had anxiety attacks, he’d put his head in my lap and nudge my hand until I pet him. Focusing on the feeling of his fur, his cold nose, his super stinky breath worked to calm me down and remind me that I was safe. He passed away in April, and it felt like going through all the trauma again.
  • TMS (Trans-Cranial Magnetic Stimulation): It felt a bit like sitting in the dentist’s chair while a woodpecker tapped on my head. I went every day for three months, and the only side effect was a minor headache when I first started.
  • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): My eyesight is so bad that I couldn’t do the actual eye movement part of it; I held a buzzer in each hand and felt the vibrations in alternating hands at different speeds. In each session, I relived particularly traumatic events over and over while the therapist guided me through sense memories and varied the speed of the buzzing. By the time the hour was up, I was usually an exhausted, damp, shaking mess running to the bathroom to vomit.
  • Medication: I think by now I’ve tried every different medication type on the market. I can’t even pronounce most of them and have to stutter and hope at the pharmacy. Most gave some relief for a little while and then stopped working.
    • There is now a way in which doctors can send a sample of your DNA to a lab, where people in white coats and shiny goggles can magically determine which medicines will or won’t work for you. I have no idea how they do it; I assume it involves cauldrons and eyes or tails of newts.
  • Ketamine: I was very hesitant to try this method because there have been so few long-term studies. When I started, I went in every day for a week and a half. After that, I went in every three to four weeks depending on how the doctor thinks I’m doing. Ketamine treatment is available through aerosol or intravenously. I sit in a comfy chair with a needle in my arm for about an hour while geometry loses all meaning and everything becomes either fascinating or hilarious. Everything in the universe swirls in front of my face, and the feeling of my hair is the most amazing sensation I can remember. According to the nurse, I tend to wax rhapsodic about how much I love every person who comes through the door. For some reason, they won’t let me drive afterwards!
  • Healing Crystals/ Salt Lamps/ Essential Oils: I had a lumpy pillow, a pink wall, and everything tasted like lavender.
  • PTSD is expensive!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour through the mess inside my head. Please wait for the ride to come to a complete stop before unbuckling safety harnesses. Be sure to gather all personal items and take them with you as you exit down the ramp to your right. Don’t forget to check the photo booth for a hilarious souvenir memento of your trip. You can also find resources for actual help; as I’m sure you remember, this has just been an example of some personal experiences for your writing toolbox.

FUNNY FIXATION OR OCD?

Posted on by vlaw759

OCD, like love and hate, is a label thrown around pretty loosely, often for humorous effect. People with fixations on organization, precise routines, hygiene, perfectionism, etc. are frequently referred to as “acting so OCD” or “showing their inner OCD.” Marketing campaigns turn OCD into a punchline to sell products like Obsessive Christmas Disorder pajamas or Khlo-CD organizational apps.

Hilarious, no?

There is a significant difference between people with odd quirks and people who have a diagnosable mental illness. Both can be useful characters for writers, albeit in very different ways. Characters who have fixations, quirks, rituals, or habits that interrupt a scene or cause awkward situations can be a source of amusement for writers. Characters who actually have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can be a source of tension, tragedy, or demonstrated compassion for writers, but the actual mental illness is not amusing.

Confusing retail workers is a sign of having too much time on one’s hands rather than having a debilitating mental illness. (Disclaimer: This blog is not affiliated with any retail chain or candy brand.)

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a common, chronic, and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, recurring thoughts (obsessions) and/or behaviors (compulsions that s/he feels the urge to repeat over and over). The line between having a personality quirks and a mental disorder can be hard to find, but it generally comes down to quality of life. Dr. Steven Brodsky points out that actual OCD will “impair social or occupational function or involve frequent excessive distress” in the lives of those suffering from it.

  • Obsessions—repeated thoughts, urges, or mental images—are private, and thus no one knows about them but the person unless they’re talked about. These uncomfortable thoughts cause anxiety.
  • Compulsions are typically (but not always) public, as is any behavior that happens the presence of others. The repetitive behaviors are an attempt to deal with the anxiety the obsessive thoughts create.

Could you benefit from an O and/or C character? Although people/characters can exhibit symptoms of obsessions, compulsions, or both, thoughts and behaviors typically occur together. See the end of this blog for specific prompts.

Detective Adrian Monk from Monk, Physicist Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, and Chef Monica Geller from Friends

Consider Monk, The Big Bang Theory, and Friends. All three shows feature characters who exhibit signs of obsessions and compulsive behaviors, usually to the sound of the laugh-track. All three characters are referred to by others as “obsessive,” “OCD,” or some variation thereof, but none experience the pain that comes along with mental illness (which I can only imagine would be heightened by hearing laughing crowds).

Obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors become part of a vicious cycle in the minds of people with OCD. Most people with OCD realize that their thoughts and behaviors are irrational, but they are unable to break the cycle. Children often don’t perceive their abnormality; symptoms are noticed by parents and/or teachers.

In contrast, “neat freaks” and people with fixations often enjoy performing the behavior in question (such as alphabetizing books), enjoy the results (such as having a tidy apartment), have had the behavior drummed into them (such as rewinding video tapes after working at Blockbuster for years [I realize that I’m dating myself]), or out of practical necessity.

An over-organized closet may be a necessity for a working mother of two, saving endless headaches on school mornings.

Most People with OCD Fall Into One of the Following Categories (in no particular order)

  • Washers are afraid of contamination. They usually have cleaning or hand-washing compulsions. Many refuse to wear anything someone else has worn, take their own sheets to hotels/motels, etc.
    • Washing your hands before and after eating is just being extra hygienic; washing your hands until they are raw and cracked is a probable sign of OCD.
Artwork by NeverStayDead
  • Checkers repeatedly check things (motion-sensor lights turned on, car locked) they associate with safety. They might keep guns or other weapons that are checked for accessibility, condition, etc.
    • Jiggling the door handle after locking it could be a funny quirk; checking the lights, the thermostat, the window latches, and everything else repeatedly until you’re late for work is a sign of unhealthy compulsion.
  • Doubters and sinners are afraid that if everything isn’t perfect or done just so something terrible will happen or they will be punished. Dressing, undressing, bathing, eating must be done in precisely the same way, for example. Or furniture cannot be moved. Cars must always be the same make.
    • This can also take the form of rituals that must be completed regardless of convenience or safety, such as always taking seven steps at a time or touching every surface in a room, including the hot stove top.
  • Counters and arrangers are obsessed with order and symmetry, perhaps including superstitions about certain numbers, colors, or arrangements. For example, counting all the angles in a room, or the number of furniture legs.
    • Being unable to enter rooms painted blue or walk without counting sets of four steps sounds amusing… until the door out of the burning house is in a blue room five steps away.
  • Hoarders keep things they neither need nor use. They fear that getting rid of anything will cause something bad to happen, or it will be needed later. These people are often co-diagnosed with other disorders, such as depression, PTSD, ADHD, compulsive buying, or kleptomania. They might engage in skin-picking.

OCD symptoms may come and go over time. Added stressors increase symptoms.

It’s a vicious circle: obsessive thoughts trigger anxiety, which leads to compulsive behavior to try to curb the anxiety, and the behavior is followed by temporary relief.

Writers consider the following:

  • A person who actually is threatened in some way while others dismiss the anxiety and precautions as being silly fixations
  • A character whose compulsive behaviors are humorous and the source of derision/ joking among coworkers or friends/ acquaintances
  • A character whose compulsive behaviors embarrass children or other family members
  • A person whose compulsive behaviors put the family in financial jeopardy
  • A person whose compulsive behavior leads neighbors, classmates, and others to ostracize the person AND his/her family
  • A character who keeps obsessive thoughts private, doesn’t act on them, and the strain leads to withdrawal from intimate relationships
  • A character whose obsessions get them into medical or legal trouble
  • A character whose OCD has become so severe that they are unable to leave the house or keep a job

Bottom line for writers: OCD characters can provide tension, tragedy, and plot development; fixated or quirky characters can provide humor. There is a big difference.

YOU SAY “SQUIRRELLY” LIKE IT’S A BAD THING!

Posted on by vlaw759

Writers take note: a squirrelly character could be an excellent choice!

Squirrel Traits and Characteristics directly relevant to humans:

  • Active: Squirrels are always on the go, climbing, running, jumping, chasing other squirrels. Their bodies are made for action, so they are seldom seen sitting quietly.
  • Fast: They move quickly and have fast reaction times, responding immediately to alarm calls, for example.
  • Resourceful: Squirrels gather food year round and store enough for winter. They take advantage of varied sources of food and shelter.

Squirrel origins. The word “squirrel” appeared as early as 1327.  Archaeological evidence indicates that squirrels originated in this (Virginia/Carolina) region of North America some 35-40 million years ago. Modern squirrels are divided into some 289 species. I’m going to focus on Eastern Gray Squirrels for two reasons: (1) they are the most numerous group; and (2) those are the ones in my back yard!

Squirrel habitat. Gray squirrels are tree-dweller. They build nests (called dreys) in the forks of tree branches. They use twigs and leaves, sometimes take over bird’s nests, or inhabit a permanent den hollowed out in the trunk or large branch of a tree. Wherever the nest, it is likely lined with moss, thistledown, dry grass, and feather insulation.

When access can be gained, they will take up residence in the walls or attics of houses—the scrabbling around driving the human inhabitants nuts, resulting in extreme (and often expensive) efforts to get rid of the invaders and block future access. But it’s worth it, because among other things, squirrels gnaw on electrical cords creating a fire hazard.

Consider the factors shaping your character’s habitat.

Squirrel diet. Squirrels are predominantly vegetarian, eating tree buds, berries, many types of seeds and acorns, nuts (walnuts, peanuts, hazelnuts, and others) and some types of  woods fungi. They can damage trees by tearing the bark and eating the soft tissue underneath. They raid gardens for tomatoes, corn, strawberries, and other garden crops. They cannot digest cellulose.

What I find especially frustrating, they often don’t actually eat what they damage, merely taking a bite or two and leaving the rest. Sometimes they eat tomato seeds and leave the pulp. They’ve been known to nibble my decorative pumpkins, taking a few bites and returning over time to take a few more bites, each time nibbling in a fresh spot.

If driven to it by hunger or other conditions, they prey upon insects, frogs, small rodents (including other squirrels), small birds, birds’ eggs. They will gnaw on bones, antlers, and turtle shells, possibly as a source of minerals scarce in their normal diet.

When opportunity arises, they will raid bird feeders for millet, corn, sunflower seeds, etc. Hanging out around bird feeders means opportunistic squirrels are perfectly situated in the middle of a relatively high bird population, increasing their ability to raid nests, eggs, and nestlings.

What characterizes your character’s diet—and why?  Omnivore, herbivore, carnivore. Exploratory, picky. Eat to live, live to eat.
Gray squirrels are scatter-hoarders.  They hoard food in numerous small caches for later recovery. Each squirrel is estimated to make several thousand caches each season! Recent research indicates that squirrels can remember and recover up to 90% of the food they bury. This is probably a combination of excellent spatial memory and sense of smell.

The amount of food they have to hide no doubt explains why squirrels are constantly digging in my patio pots and flower beds! Even as I type they are uprooting pansies and breaking off the green stalks that would otherwise become daffodils.

Is your character a hoarder? Of what? Where? How?
Squirrels are smart and devious.  In order to keep other animals from digging up their food caches, they sometimes pretend to bury it. They prepare the spot as usual, pretend to put the food in while actually concealing it in their mouths, and then covering the hole as if the food were there. They also hide behind vegetation while burying food or hide it high up in trees. These behaviors appeared to be learned.

How does your character treat coworkers? Family? Friends?

Reproduction.  Grey squirrels can breed twice a year when fully mature (if food is abundant), once in the spring for younger females. These squirrels are polygynous—i.e., competing males form a hierarchy of dominance and the female mates with multiple males depending on the hierarchy. Five days before a female enters estrus, she may attract up to 34 males from up to 500 meters away.

Typically one to four kits are born in each litter, hairless, blind, and deaf. They begin to leave the nest around 12 weeks. Only 25% of the kits survives to one year of age. More than half die the next year. After that, mortality is about 30% of the survivors per year.  An adult typically lives about 6 years in the wild, though it can be as many as 12.

Communication. Squirrels use both sounds and body language to communicate. They squeak, utter a low-pitched noise, a chatter, a raspy “mehr mehr mehr” as well as “kuk” or “quaa” (vocals warning of predators). Biologists describe an affectionate coo-purring sound used between a mother and her kits and by males when they court a female during mating season.

Squirrels also communicate by tail-flicking, facial expressions, and other gestures. The relative reliance on vocal versus physical signals depends on ambient noise and sight-lines.

Human communication: verbal (the words said), paralanguage (how it’s said), and body language (posture, gesture, facial expression)

And one very special talent. Gray squirrels are one of very few mammalian species that can descend a tree head-first. It does this by rotating its back feet 180 degrees so the backward-facing claws can grip the tree bark. The benefit of this ability isn’t limited to trees. Squirrels are incredibly athletic, jumping among tree limbs or from trees to other object, and gasping with both front and back paws allows them to climb slim poles and hang both upside-down and right-side-up. In my back yard, and I presume other places, a tree branch bouncing and swinging in the morning sun is the signal that a squirrel is about to jump from the tree to the bird feeder—where it grasps whatever comes first to hand.

The beauty of gray squirrels. Gray squirrels have silky fur and bushy tails. They have predominantly gray fur with a white underside, but (like the gray wolf) can exhibit colors variations: brownish, black, and white. Squirrels that are almost entirely black predominant in certain geographic areas, specifically in the north, where it appears that their dark color is a survival adaptation to cold temperatures.

Albinos are present throughout nature, including among gray squirrels. Albinos squirrels have pure white fur with red eyes. White squirrels, on the other hand, are a genetic variation of the eastern gray squirrel, white but usually with a small patch of gray head patch and dorsal stripe. AND it has dark eyes.

In general, white squirrels are at a disadvantage, rejected by other squirrels and easily sighted by predators. However, in certain geographic areas, humans have taken a hand and allow white squirrels to thrive: Brevard, North Carolina; Marionville, Missouri, Olney, Illinois; Kenton, Tennessee; and Exeter, Ontario. The premier location seems to be Brevard, where one in three squirrels is white, the highest percentage white of any known squirrel colony. In 1986, Brevard passed an ordinance making the city a sanctuary for white squirrels, and now they celebrate a White Squirrel Festival.

I was fortunate enough to see a white squirrel in my back yard.—which makes me part of a (somewhat) elite club. Even though a white squirrel is still basically a talented tree rat, it has symbolism on its side. In folklore all-white animals have long been seen as portents of good luck, symbols of purity, and even visitors from the realms of gods and spirits.

This would naturally segue smoothly into a discussion of squirrel symbolism, but that turns out to be way too expansive for this blog. There are numerous online discussions of squirrels as totems, spirit animals, and animals of power. There is even an essay on the meaning of a squirrel appearing in dreams, depending on how and what it’s doing.

Writers: consider reading up a bit on squirrel symbolism because all of these articles describe the behaviors/characteristics of people with a squirrel connection.

THE FLIP SIDE OF TWINS

Posted on by vlaw759
Identical twin sisters gave birth to daughters on the same day in Fresno, California.

Last week, Kathleen Corcoran shared a horrifying review of the portrayal of twins in horror films. The focus was on identical twins and the societal assumption of duality: good/bad, light/dark, the pervasive trope of one twin being evil—though sometimes both claim to be the evil twin!

Gred and Forge can both solemnly swear they’re up to no good!

There is a long history of assuming evil by one or both twins, attributing natural disasters and disease to twins, sometimes leading them to be left alone to die or even  buried alive along with their mother. Myths of twin mental telepathy, mate-swapping, and all sorts of weirdness have been around for centuries. But twins are fertile material for writers even without going to the dark side!


In the beginning:

Twins are of two types.

  • Identical twins (also called monozygotic) are the result of one egg, fertilized by one sperm, that for some reason separates into two cell masses shortly after fertilization. Their genetic codes are identical and permanent. 
  • Fraternal twins (also called dizygotic) are the result of two eggs being fertilized by two sperm during the same fertile period of the mother’s cycle. With the same father, fraternal twins share approximately 50% of their genetic heritage. They are no more alike genetically than any other full siblings of the same parents.

In this instance, the girls are full siblings of the same two parents. Plot point!  Given the differences in appearance, what if the father suspected that the mother had been with another man? 

The technical term is heteropaternal superfecundation.

How could fraternal twins have different fathers? It starts with the mother releasing more than one egg and then having sex with more than one man within the few days of her fertile cycle. According to Brian Boutwell in Psychology Today, 11/19/2017, “…more than 2% of fraternal twin pregnancies involve the genetic contributions of separate men, but Segal [Dr. Nancy L. Segal] contends that it’s likely higher, since when the two dads are of the same race and ethnicity, mothers may assume that both twins have the same sire.”

This British couple each fertilized one egg and implanted both embryos into the same surrogate.

Writers: Imagine the situation in which a woman would have sex with more than one man within days of each other. Rape? Promiscuity? Two intense relationships she’s conflicted about?

There are more fraternal twins among us than identical ones. 

The likelihood of identical twins is the same around the world, about 3-4 in 1,000 (3.3% in the U.S.). The incidence of fraternal twins varies by geography, from 6 to over 20 per 1,000 deliveries. Among the Yoruba in Nigeria, 1 in 11 people is a twin.

The World Twins Festival in Igboora-Ora, Nigeria celebrates the esteemed place twins hold in Yoruba society.

Do twins run in families?

Fraternal twins have long been recognized as likely to recur in families. Although women typically release only one egg per cycle, some women release multiple eggs on a regular basis, increasing the likelihood of fraternal twins. This tendency for hyperovulation can be an inherited trait straight from mothers to daughters and also to the daughters of sons. Writers: consider a character who is a matriarch in a twinning family.

Fraternal twinning rates vary across populations. A 2011 study reported that the highest rates of twinning in Central African populations, especially Benin. Asia and Latin America had the lowest rates of twinning. In the US, Asian American and Latino/Hispanic Americans (21.8/1000) have the lowest rates; African American women are more like (36.8 per 1,000) to have twins than Caucasian women. Getting pregnant while breastfeeding (while less likely overall) increases the likelihood of twins (11.4% vs. 1.1% in non-breastfeeding women).

Candido Godoi in Brazil has one of the highest densities of twins in the world, 10% of the total population.

Historically, identical twins have been assumed to result from random events in utero.  However, twin researcher Dr. Nancy Segal traveled to Brazil to spend time with a family that includes 22 sets of identical twins born across five generations. A study in Jordan focused on 13 sets of identical twins. Similarly, seven different families sharing similar alleles produced at least two pairs of identical twins. Clearly, this area of study is full of opportunities for further research.

Other factors affecting twinning: besides heredity, being an older woman (over 30), having previous children, being taller, and having a high body mass index (over 30) all increase the likelihood of fraternal twinning. Research among the Yoruba indicates that a diet high in beans and yams may contribute to twinning! Writers: to make your twinning thread realistic, first determine why they are twins.

Sacrococcygeal Teratoma (SCT)

Vanishing twin syndrome and related phenomena:

An estimated one in eight natural pregnancies begins as twins, but in the early weeks of the pregnancy one zygote (fertilized egg) is reabsorbed or spontaneously aborted, perhaps because of birth defects making it nonviable.

This teenage girl’s abdominal pain turned out to be the remnants of her partially developed twin.

But sometimes the twin doesn’t really vanish: in these cases, the fetus is partially reabsorbed and remnants of the nonviable fetus are found in the mother, placenta, or surviving twin. This is most likely to occur during the second or third trimester. The death of one twin at 15-20 weeks may result in papyraceous, a tiny paper-like flattened fetal remnant. Writers: imagine the possibilities. A teratoma tumor containing bone, hair, teeth, or tissue fragments may be found in the survivor. Some survivors feel longing, guilt, grief, or problems with relationships or sexuality.

Lifelong twinless-twins are people whose twin died at or near birth. Often the surviving twin strives to assert their uniqueness and/or feel as if they’re living for two people. Famous examples include Elvis Presley, painter Diego Rivera, pianist Liberace, and writers Thornton Wilder and Philip K. Dick.

The basic framework for twin studies: the goal is to understand variances in behavioral, physical, and mental health in the population at large. Studying twins allows researchers to separate (at least to a certain degree) the three contributing factors.

  • Ggenetic effects/ heritability
  • Shared environment, both in utero and after birth
  • Unshared/ unique/ non-shared environment, happen to only one twin (e.g., accidents, travel, work, classes)

Overall, research indicates that the relative importance of genetic vs. environment depends on the specific trait being studied. (Duh!)

When one twin is a robot, all three contributing factors are involved.

Birth order for twins

  • The general assumption is that twins are born minutes apart, but lots of twins have different birthdays. The longest time between deliveries is 87 days! Peggy Lynn, of Danville, Pennsylvania, delivered twins Eric and Hanna 84 days apart, one in November 1995, one in February 1996.
  • Birth order doesn’t seem to affect psychological outcomes.
  • Second-born twins are at higher risk for health problems including respiratory distress, neonatal trauma, and infections.
  • Along with the history of primogeniture in Great Britain, with older being the heir, there has been a tendency to assume some sort of primacy, privilege, or superiority to being firstborn. However, among the Yoruba of Nigeria, the firstborn twin (always named Taiye) is assumed to be the younger of the twins: they believe the senior twin (always named Kehinde) sent the younger one out first to scout the world and declare it safe.
Taiye and Kehinde marrying Taiwo and Kehinda
(photo by BellaNaija)

Other twin facts

  • In utero, as early as 18 weeks, twins seem to reach for each other intentionally and stroke each other. Early signs of bonding?
  • About 40% of twins develop their own language.
  • Twins yawn contagiously. Most non-twins don’t exhibit this behavior till 4 or 5 years old.
  • They affect each other’s sleep patterns for years.
  • Identical twins still have different fingerprints.
  • One twin can’t get away with a crime by blaming the other twin because modern technology can distinguish them (facial recognition, fingerprints, hair follicles, etc.).
  • Twins are more likely than singletons to be left-handed.
  • Identical twins can vary greatly in specific skills.
  • About one third of twins are opposite-sex fraternal.

Weird similarities of twins reared apart:

Twins switched out at birth are rare, but many twins (at least 1,894 cases since 1922) have been reared apart as a result of adoption.
According to Dr. Nancy Segal, “they [twins reared apart] cannot be communicating because they are often unaware that the other twin exists—instead, they are reflecting their matched abilities, tastes, and temperaments.” Thus they may read the same books, follow similar household routines, or enjoy the same hobbies.


Jorge Enrique Bernal Castro, William Canas Velasco, Carlos Bernal Castro and Wilber Canas Velasco were switched at birth in Columbia and raised as two sets of fraternal twins instead of pairs of identical twins.


Another set of separated twins studied by Segal were “The Jim Twins.” Reunited at age 39 without previously knowing the other existed, they’d been adopted and lived forty miles apart in Ohio. Both got terrible migraine, bit their nails, smoked Salem cigarettes, drove light blue Chevys, scored poorly in math and spelling, had worked at McDonald’s and as part-time deputy sheriffs. One named his first son James Alan; the other named his first son James Allan. Both married women named Linda, divorced, and then married women named Betty.

Identical twins habits, interests, intelligence, and religion seem immune to separate upbringings.

The Jim Twins

And then there’s the environment: 

Even with identical DNA, twins can exhibit remarkable differences in the way their genetics interact with the environment. For example, a set of four identical sisters were all diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 24, primarily as a result of an abusive upbringing. One sister had mild symptoms and might never have been diagnosed if not for her three sisters. The symptoms of the other three ranged from paranoia and hallucinations to catatonia and incoherence.

To protect the family’s anonymity, the sisters were referred to as the Genain Quadruplets in research publications.

Nowadays, it is widely acknowledged that all human disorders involve both a genetic and an epigenetic (environmental) component.
Although both identical and fraternal twins share parents, parenting styles, houses, food, schools, popular culture, etc., there is some speculation that parents, teachers, peers, and others treat identical twins more similarly than fraternal ones.

Kodinhi Village in Kerala, India has more than 400 sets of twins.

The upside of being a twin:

  • The extreme closeness of twins, of “having a best buddy for life” may be protective over their lifespan. Life is longest among identical twins, but fraternal twins also live longer than the general population.
  • Twins—particularly identical twins—validate each other, their beliefs and attitudes.
  • The opportunity to prank family and friends or take each other’s spelling tests provides endless amusement.
The violence often begins at birth.

The downside of being a twin:

  • For both identical and fraternal twins, a big downside is the comparison game: which twin is bigger, brighter, nicer, more attractive, more talented, etc.
  • For identical twins, a huge challenge is to establish one’s individuality. Not everyone wants to his/her identity to be defined by twinness.
Ere Ibeji are memorial statues honoring Yoruba twins who have died.

Celebrating twins

Yoruba twins have an annual festival in Ishara, a picturesque city on steep hills with dirt roads and what are reported to be “gingerbread-colored” houses (whatever that means). During the festival, twins in Ishara wear matching clothes, dance in the streets and exchange gifts. Their mothers cook the food, mostly beans.

The largest gathering of twins is the annual Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio. Attendees can enjoy funnel cakes and other fair food. Thousands of twins participate, as well as other multiples. Researchers gather from far and wide to test volunteers and enlarge the body of knowledge associated with twins.

Bottom line for writers: twins are fertile ground for characters and plot. You can find an incredible amount of info online. Check it out!


DUOMAIEUSIOPHOBIA – DOUBLE TROUBLE

Posted on by vlaw759

A suspected publicity stunt for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children terrified London commuters.

Today’s blog entry was written by Kathleen Corcoran, a local harpist, teacher, writer, editor, favorite auntie, and reluctant sister, niece, and granddaughter of twins.

Even they cannot tell who is who in this photo.

Duomaieusiophobia (literally the fear of double childbirth) is the scientific name for the fear of twins, though it can refer to the fear of any multiple birth.  Twins are a very common element in movies and TV, whether identical, fraternal, or imaginary.

I bet they share absolutely everything!

In the horror genre, twins often serve to add an extra element of creepiness even if their relationship is not the primary driver of the plot.  Consider the twin girls in The Shining or the Merovingian’s twin assasins in The Matrix: Reloaded.  Though they are minor characters, their appearance on screen is chilling.

And this is before they turned into glowing electric ghosts

A big factor for this (beyond saving money by only paying one actor for two roles) comes down to our own subconscious: twins pose a threat to our understanding of self-identity and to the way the world works.  In some cultures, twins are seen as lucky or even venerated as having a direct link to the divine.

The Yoruba people have one of the highest concentrations of twins in the world, and they celebrate all of them.

In other cultures, twins are seen as the result of or the bringers of evil and are ritually killed.  At either end, twins are outside of the norm.

The Twins Days Twins Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio. Just being there was very unsettling.

The Evil Twin

Anthropologists have theorized that twins were originally seen as personifying the duality of nature – day and night, summer and winter, birth and death, etc.  This carried over into mythology, in which twins often played opposite roles, such as Apollo and Artemis controlling the sun and the moon.  Opposite moralities are also a common element in mythology; one twin is good and the other is evil: Cain and Abel, Romulus and Remus, etc.

Jonah and Seth Trimble in Seconds Apart. Can you spot the evil twin?

Many horror movies play on this trope.  Twins are identical in every way except for the body count.  This idea is so common that an entire page of TVTropes is dedicated to good and evil twins or clones.  My sisters like to claim that they are both the evil twin.

Bette Davis played both good and evil twins in Dead Ringer.

Margot Kidder played a twin who was so possessive of her sister that she murdered any potential rivals in Sisters.

Twins of Evil starred actual twin sisters Mary and Madeleine Collinson, one of whom is turned into a vampire.

Closely linked to the idea of one twin being good and the other evil, there is a common theme of one twin taking the other’s place.  In comedies, this generally results in zany hijinks, as when the Marx brothers all put on Groucho Marx’s iconic mustache and glasses and caused mayhem all over the mansion in Duck Soup.

They weren’t actually twins, but Groucho, Chico, and Harpo could certainly pass!

In horror movies, the evil twin generally steps into the life of the good twin for personal gain or allows the good twin to take the fall for nefarious deeds.

Good twin Holland is punished for evil twin Niles… or so it would seem in the 1972 film The Other.

Blood Rage features a psychotically evil twin who frames his brother for several murders.

The Devil’s Double (2011) features both the good/ evil twin trope and the impostor/ scapegoat trope as well as being based on a true story.  Dominic Cooper plays Saddam Hussein’s son Uday as well as the soldier called up to be Uday’s fedai (a political decoy and body double).

Letif Yahia is rumored to be living in Ireland or Germany now.

Both Twins Are Evil

In many areas of the world, particularly West Africa, twins (or triplets or quadruplets) are viewed as harbingers of doom or even inherently evil.  Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart mentions the village custom of abandoning twins in the forest to die.  Some even blame the devastating 2016 earthquake in Tanzania as the work of angry twins.

June and Jennifer Gibbons are a real-life pair of twins, born in 1963, who spoke only to each other and committed several acts of theft and violence.

Despite a concerted effort by government and foreign aid groups, twins in Nigeria and Madagascar are frequently buried alive with their mother or sealed in a room to starve to death.  Though for different reasons, Hollywood shares many of these ideas of twins being unnaturally synchronized, lacking empathy for all others, possessing some form of supernatural ability, or even providing a gateway for evil spirits or ghosts.

The twin boys in American Horror Story: Murder House are condemned to spend eternity trapped in the house where they tormented others.

Jeremy Irons played both psychotic doctors in the film Dead Ringers, horrifyingly based on a true story.

Legend was also based on a true story, of the London gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, though Ronnie was arguably a little more evil.

The German film Goodnigt Mommy features a pair of twin boys who torture and kill their mother when they think she is an impostor.

Twins Separated or Left Alone

Because twins are so close, strange things tend to happen when they are raised separately or when one dies.  This is often called the Twinless Twin effect, and it touches the parents of twins and other siblings as well as the twins themselves.  Both Elvis Presley and Liberace lost a twin very early in life, and they both cited their missing twin as having a major influence on their creative work.

Both performers felt that they were living for their twin as well as themselves.

This particular grief felt by twinless twins, coupled with the assumption of twins’ psychic link, creates perfect fodder for horror movies.  Several of the films listed above have a surprise ending in which it is revealed that one twin has already died and is a hallucination or delusion of the remaining twin.  No spoilers!

A stillborn twin comes back to haunt his sister and serve as a bridge for the ghosts of other twinless twins in The Unborn.

Alone is a Thai horror movie about a conjoined twin who dies during separation surgery and comes back to possess her sister. It also features the trope of the good/evil twin pair.

Calling upon her supposed twin bond, the heroine of The Forest enters Aokigahara (the “Suicide Forest”) in Japan to search for her sister, whom she believes is planning to commit suicide.

The film Jonathon is an interesting twist on the idea of the twinless twin: both brothers inhabit one body, switching off every twelve hours, so they can never meet or interact.

Every year, at the Twins Days Twins Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, an entire section of the festival grounds is set aside for researchers looking for volunteers.  Twins throw balls into cups, test their memories, fill out questionnaires about mental health, and let themselves be weighed, measured, observed, and questioned to shed light on all those pesky questions people can’t answer by experimenting on babies.

Most researchers offer gifts or money in exchange for participation. My sisters won so much cash in prizes that I made them pay for the hotel.

Scientists are fascinated by twins because of what they can reveal about genetics and the role of environment in supposedly hereditary traits.  Anthropologists are fascinated by twins because of what they can illustrate about a culture’s understanding of self-identity.  Doctors are fascinated by twins because of what they can demonstrate about the contraction or treatment of illness.

Is the ability to play the harp standing up and backwards hereditary? You’d have to ask Camille and Kennerly Kitt, the Harp Twins.

Artists, filmmakers, writers of any sort are fascinated by twins because of what they can show us about human nature, because of the opportunity for wacky confusion, because they have a bond that is very rarely found in any other grouping of characters.  Twins are a source of comedy, drama, terror, tenderness, and every other aspect of writing… doubled!

This is by far the most terrifying image I found online. Can you tell which one is Bruce Willis?

BURIED ALIVE

Posted on by vlaw759
 
Fear of being buried alive is called taphephobia.  Also known as live burial, premature burial, and vivisepulture, it’s been around forever—and is with us still!  Those buried alive often die of asphyxiation, dehydration, starvation, or hypothermia.  If fresh air is available, the buried person can last days.

 

This guy seems pretty happy about the situation.

Fear of being buried alive reached a peak in 19th century England.  More than 120 books in at least five languages were written about it, as well as methods to distinguish life from death.  (See below.)

 

Harry Clarke’s illustration for Premature Burial by Edgar Allen Poe

A Fine Literary Tradition
 
Consider Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial,” The Fall of the House of Usher, and Berenice.  More recently, Stephen King’s 1987 novel Misery includes Paul Sheldon’s Misery’s Return, a book within a book.

Farinata and Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti in Level 6 of the Inferno, painted by Suloni Robertson

Dante’s Inferno references several classes of sinners punished with some form of eternal burial:

  • The Sullen in Level 5 are kept just below the waters of the River Styx, forever near drowning.
  • The Heretics in Level 6 are trapped in flaming tombs.
  • Murderers in Level 7 are covered by a river of boiling blood.
  • In Level 8 (where all types of fraud are punished)
    • Flatterers are encased in human excrement.
    • Simonists are buried head-first while flames burn their feet.
    • Fraudulent Counselors are encased in flames.
  • The Treacherous in Level 9 are buried in ice of varying levels depending on their sin.
Accidental or Unintentional Burial
 

It’s easier to handle if you bring a buddy along.

Reports of being buried alive date back to the fourteenth century.  In spite of hype and hysteria, as late as the 1890s patients have been documented as being declared dead and accidentally sent to a morgue or encased in a steel box, only to “come back to life” when the coffin is dropped, the grave is opened by grave robbers, or embalming  or dissection has begun.

 

“Life preserving coffin in doubtful cases of actual dead,” a safety-coffin model by Christian Eisenbrandt

During centuries when embalming wasn’t common practice, coffins were mostly for the rich, and rapid burial was the norm especially during major pestilences such as cholera, bubonic plague, and smallpox.  In these cases, rapid burial was an attempt to curb the spread of the disease.

 

The Great Plague by Rita Greer

Several medical conditions can contribute to the presumption of death: catalepsy, coma, and hypothermia.

 

How to Know When Someone Is Really Dead

 

Snoring is a pretty good sign. (This is actually the Fourpence Coffin flophouse, the first homeless shelter in London.)

Jan Bondeson, author of Buried Alive, identified methods of verifying death used by 18th and 19th century physicians.  (Personal reaction: shudder!)  The methods were any acts the physician thought would rouse the unconscious patient, virtually all imaginatively painful.
  • Soles of the feet sliced with razors
  • Needles jammed under toenails
  • Bugle fanfares and “hideous Shrieks and excessive Noises”
  • Red hot poke up the rectum
  • Application of nipple pincers
  • A bagpipe type invention to administer tobacco enemas
  • Boiling Spanish wax poured on patients’ foreheads and warm urine poured into the mouth
  • A crawling insect inserted into patient’s ear
  • A sharp pencil up the presumed cadaver’s nose
  • Tongue pulling (manual or mechanical) for at least three hours

 

The traditional Irish wake was (and is) an occasion for family and friends to celebrate the life of the deceased while watching the body for signs of movement.

Most agreed that the most reliable way to be sure someone was dead was to keep an eye on the body for a while.  To that end, waiting at least 72 hours from apparent death to burial was mandated.  In the mid-1800s, Munich had ten “waiting mortuaries” where bodies were stored awaiting putrefaction.  Each body was rigged to bells to summon an attendant should the corpse come back to life.

 

Waiting morgues, like this one in Paris, were often left open to the public for macabre entertainment

We presume that modern science has surpassed this sort of mistake, defining death as brain death.  Even so, earthquakes and other natural disasters often result in people being accidentally buried alive.

 

Victims of the 2018 tsunami in Nepal were not so fortunate.

But Wait: Sometimes People Are Buried Alive on Purpose!

From the Museum of Torture in Venice

Sometimes live burial is a method of execution.  Documented cases exist for China, German tribes, Persia, Rome, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Russia, Netherlands, Ukraine, and Brazil.

Confucian scholars were buried alive while their books were burned in 3rd century BCE

Interestingly, most of the laws demanding live burial as a form of execution were for crimes committed by women.  Men convicted of comparable crimes were more likely to be beheaded.

 

Vestal Virgins were sealed in caves for breaking their vow of chastity, as shown in this painting by Pietro Saja

When death was not enough, often a spike was driven through the body of the person executed by live burial, perhaps as a way to prevent the person from becoming an avenging, undead Wiedergänger.

 

In some parts of the world, live burial is still practiced as a means of execution.  Often, the victim is buried upright with only their head above ground.  In these cases, death is very slow and painful, often the result of dehydration or wounds caused by animal scavengers.

 

And sometimes live burials are another horrific act of war.

Codice Casanatense, a Portugese artist, recorded this scene of a Hindu widow being sent alive to her husband’s grave.

Very rarely people willingly arrange to be buried alive, for any number of reasons.  Sometimes it is to demonstrate their ability to survive it.  The Indian government has made voluntary live burials illegal because the people who try it so often die.  In 2010, a Russian man was buried to try to overcome his fear of death, but was crushed to death by the weight of the earth over him.

Four “lucky” contest winners

There are even performances in which people have an opportunity to be buried alive for fifteen or twenty minutes.  As a publicity stunt for the opening of the 2010 film Buried, a lottery was held for a few fans to have a very unique viewing experience.  Four winners were blindfolded, driven to the middle of nowhere, and buried alive in special coffins equips with screens on which they could watch the film.  (A 2003 episode of “Mythbusters” demonstrated that, even if a person buried alive was able to break out of a coffin, they would be crushed or asphyxiated by the resulting dirt fall.)

There is now a monument to Mick Meaney on Kilburne Street.

Irish barman Mick Meaney remained buried under Kilburne Street in London for 61 days in 1968, mostly to win a bet.  Tubes to the surface allowed air and food to reach him in his temporary, underground prison.

Parents are often unwillingly volunteered for vivisepulture on the beach.

Bottom line for writers: consider a character being buried alive—or being threatened with it—as a way to up the tension. 
 
Live burial isn’t the only attention-worthy aspect of dead bodies.  For more, check out books such as these.

OCTOBER IS FOR HORROR: VAMPIRES

Posted on by vlaw759

Drawn by shamad

A friend recently told me that the horror villains we fear are subconscious stand-ins for things we’re afraid of in real life.  Vampires stand for a fear of change; zombies for a fear of crowds or strangers.  Fear of clowns is a sign you’re a normal, well-adjusted, perfectly rational person.

 

The anthropomorphic personification of EVIL!

Inquiring minds want to know!  I started with vampires—and I never got past vampires!

 

When I went online to learn what it means if we fear vampires, what popped up was an article by Ralph Blumenthal, “A Fear of Vampires Can Mask a Fear of Something Much Worse.”  He was writing in 2002 about villagers in Malawi believing that the government was colluding with vampires to collect human blood in exchange for food.

 

Mobs of vampire hunters killed dozens in Malawi

At the time, Malawi was in the grip of starvation, a severe AIDS epidemic, and political upheaval.  He cited Nina Auerbach, author of Our Vampires, Ourselves, to the effect that stories of the undead embody power ”and our fears of power.”

David J. Skal, author of The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror claims that a fixation on demons often accompanies periods of national stress.  “In times of social upheaval, the vampire asserts itself.”

 

 

In nearly every culture in the world, there is a legend of some variation of vampire-like creatures—the dead who reanimate and come back to feed on the living.  And there is general agreement that the roots of vampire legends are in the misunderstanding of how bodies decompose and of how certain diseases spread.

 

The Chinese Jiangshi hunts by “hopping” because of rigor mortis.

In an October 26, 2016 article in National Geographic titled The Bloody Truth About Vampires, Becky Little wrote, “As a corpse’s skin shrinks, its teeth and fingernails can appear to have grown longer.  And as internal organs break down, a dark ‘purge fluid’ can leak out of the nose and mouth.  People unfamiliar with this process would interpret this fluid to be blood and suspect that the corpse had been drinking it from the living.”

Paul Barber, author of Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality, made several telling points in the introduction to his book.  One is that there is little similarity between the vampires of folklore and the vampires of fiction.
Modern images of vampires are pretty stereotyped: fangs that bite the necks of victims; drinking human blood; can’t see themselves in mirrors; can be warded off with garlic, killed with a stake (or silver nail) through the heart; are aristocrats who live in castles and may be sexy.  This image was popularized by Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Count Dracula in the 1931 film adaptation of the Broadway show of the same name.  Unlike Bram Stoker’s description of the monster in the 1897 novel Dracula as a repulsive old man with huge eyebrows and bat-like ears, Lugosi showed audiences a mysteriously elegant gentleman in evening dress.

 

 

The 1922 film Nosferatu (on left), though an unlicensed adaptation, portrayed the vampire as described in Stoker’s novel.

 

In European folklore, vampires typically wore shrouds, and were often described as bloated, with a ruddy or dark countenance.  Specific descriptions varied among regions: sometimes male, sometimes female, might have long fingernails, a stubby beard, the mouth and left eye open, a permanently hateful stare, red eyes, no eyes, etc.  Fangs were not always a prominent feature, and blood was generally sucked from bites on the chest near the heart rather than the throat.

Polish strzyga

But perhaps the most important theme of Barber’s book is that, lacking a scientific background in physiology, pathology, or immunization, the common response of ancient societies was to blame death and disease on the dead.  To that end, the interpretations they came up with—while wrong from today’s perspective—nevertheless were usually coherent, covered all the data, and provided the rationale for some common practices that seemed to be otherwise inexplicable.

 

A manananggal from the Philippines will send its detached head and torso to hunt.

Should you ever be pursued by a vampire, fling a handful of rice, millet, or other small grain in its path.  The vampire will be compelled to stop to count every grain, giving you time to escape.  I found no information on how vampires came to be associated with arithmomania, but it endures: remember The Count von Count on Sesame Street?

 

He’s the color of a rotting corpse, but cloth fangs are pretty harmless.

At this point, I realize that getting into methods of identifying vampires, protecting against vampires, ways to destroy vampires, and cross-cultural variations on vampirism is way beyond the scope of this blog.  Instead, I refer you to books such as this:

 

 

And should vampires show up in your dreams, according to DreamBible: the answers to all your dreams, pay attention.  Their appearance could mean many things.
  • Seeing a vampire in your dream symbolizes an aspect of your personality that is parasitic or selfishly feeds off others.
  • Alternatively, a vampire may reflect feelings about people you believe want to pull you down to their level or convert you to thinking negatively in a way similar to theirs.
  • To dream of being a vampire represents a selfish need to feed off others.
  • To dream of being bitten by a vampire represents feelings about other people using you or feeding off you and being unable to stop it.
  • Vampires may be a sign of dependence, problems with addiction, social pressure, or ambivalence.
  • A dream vampire might be telling you that you need to start being more independent and relying less on others resources or accomplishments.
  • To dream of killing vampires represents overcoming dependence on others.
  • Repeated dreams of vampires hovering over your shoulder and correcting your spelling or suggesting topics for research and expansion is almost certainly a sign that you are writing a blog entry about vampires.

The yara-ma-yha-who in Australia drains a victim of almost all blood before swallowing and regurgitating the body, which then becomes a copy of its killer.

Bottom line for writers: consider whether a vampire is a fit metaphor for your character.
 

The soucouyant appears in the Caribbean by day as a harmless old woman, but she sheds her skin at night to hunt as a ball of fire.

SEE SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING—MAYBE

Posted on by vlaw759

Kitty Genovese

The March 13, 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese led to an entirely new field of research in psychology.  Genovese was attacked while walking home from work at 3:20 a.m. in Queens, New York.  She was stabbed, sexually assaulted, and murdered over a period of 30 minutes.  Subsequent reports said 38 witnesses watched the attack from nearby apartments but neither intervened nor even called the police until the attacker fled.  Kitty Genovese died on the way to a hospital.

 

Two psychologists, Bibb Latané and John Darley, conducted extensive research to examine and try to explain such apparently callous indifference to the suffering of another human being.  Over time, these and other researchers teased out several factors that will affect the likelihood of bystander intervention.

 

  • Diffusion of responsibility is one of the earliest and most powerful variables identified: the more people who are bystanding, the less likely it is that anyone will intervene.  Responsibility is diffused among all.
    • Contrarily, Philpot et al. just this year published the results examining real-life video recordings from three countries and found that someone intervened in over 90% of cases.  Even if the likelihood of any one person responding was infrequent, someone in the crowd intervened.

 

Note the lack of assistance offered by the bystander

  • Emergency vs. non-emergency situations. The following conditions are relevant.
    • Notice that something is going on.
    • interpret the situation as an emergency.  Others not reacting provides social influence against acting,
    • Feel responsible: does the victim deserve help, is the bystander competent, what is the bystander’s relationship to victim.
    • The form of assistance needed (e.g., medical emergency, harassment protection, etc.).
    • Implement the action choice.

CPR? Thermal blankets? Take away the vodka?

  • Ambiguity and consequences: ambiguous situations take up to five times as long to respond to, and even then bystanders will often not intervene until after assessing their own safety.

 

No one will slip or fall. There is no room to land.

  • Cohesiveness and group membership: the more cohesive a group, the more likely it is that the norm of social responsibility will lead to helping.  Bigger cohesive groups are quickest to react.

 

When punching a small child is perfectly acceptable

  • Cultural differences affect intervention—both broad/national culture and subculture.

 

Taking a photo is far more important than looking for survivors.

  • Digital interference is a relatively new phenomenon.  With the spread of cell phones and social media, bystanders at a scene are becoming more likely to try to film the incident (whether as “armchair activism” or simply to attract online attention) than they are to intervene or call for help.  This has the doubled impact of overloading nearby cell towers so that actual phone calls to emergency services are not connected.

Plus, it makes you look like a total jerk!

Bystander apathy can be counteracted by raising awareness of bystander effects ad consciously taking steps to overcome it and help; and victims can overcome the diffusion of responsibility in groups by singling out a single member and asking for help from that one person.

 

In 2011, Muslims and Christians in Tahrir Square took turns forming protective circles to allow the others a safe place to pray.

Bottom line for writers: make your readers understand why your character does or does not intervene!

 

Any kind of intervention was clearly doomed.

ALTRUISM? REALLY?

Posted on by vlaw759
Altruism: an individual performing an action that is at a cost to him/herself (e.g., time, effort,  pleasure, quality of life, probability of survival or reproduction) that benefits – either directly or indirectly – another individual or group, without the expectation of reciprocity or compensation for that action.

 

Helping behavior may or may not be altruistic.  There are many factors affecting the urge to help, including the following.

 

1) Kin selection: both animals and humans are more helpful toward close kin that to distant kin or non-kin.  Perception of kinship is affected by whether the other looks like the giver, shares a family name (especially if it’s an unusual name), has a familiar scent (in animal groups), etc.  Think of kin as the in-group.

 

2) Vested interests: helping friends, allies, and similar social in-groups (besides avoiding vicarious suffering to the individual) may eventually benefit the altruist.  Extreme self-sacrifice may be adaptive if a hostile outgroup threatens to kill the entire group.  During the Allied campaign in Italy in the World War II, First Lieutenant John Robert Fox ordered an artillery strike on his position in Sommocolinia, sacrificing his own life to take out invading German forces and allow US troops to retreat safely.  He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

 

First Lieutenant John Robert Fox

3) Reciprocal altruism: helping others is more likely if there is a chance that they can and will reciprocate.  Therefore, people are more helpful it is likely that they will interact again in the future.  If a person sees others being non-cooperative, they are less likely to be helpful.  If someone helps first, the recipient of the help is more likely to help in return.  Think charities that give small gifts of stickers, notepads, or holiday cards when asking for a contribution.

 

Cleaner wrasse servicing a big-eye squirrelfish

4) People are more likely to cooperate on a task if they can communicate first.

 

Technology assisting Rohingya in getting aid

5) Groups of people cooperate more if they perceive a threat from another group.  In the insect world, this frequently happens when a colony or hive finds safety in numbers while moving larvae, a queen, or the entire group.  Ants, bees, termites, etc., form large masses and structures to complete the move.

 

Moving a beehive

6) People will help more when they know that their helping will be communicated to people they will interact with later, is publicly announced, is discussed, or is simply observed by someone else.

 

Peace Corps volunteers swearing in

7) Selective investment theory proposes that close social bonds, and associated emotional, cognitive, and neurohormonal mechanisms evolved in order to facilitate long-term, high-cost altruism benefiting those depending on another for group survival and reproductive success.  Humans, like many other animals, care for members of the species who cannot care for themselves, ultimately benefiting the species as a whole.

 

Very young and very old humans often require assistance and care

8) Microbiologists are studying whether some strains of microbes might influence the hosts to perform altruistic behaviors that are not immediately obvious as beneficial to the host.  There is a possibility, currently being researched, that the bacteria in a person’s gut could affect their behavior and that changes in the bacterial makeup (such as from taking antibiotics) might result in a change in personality.

 

At first glance, this monkey grooming a sleeping wild dog must be suicidal

Psychology has defined psychological altruism as “a motivational state with the goal of increasing another’s welfare.  Some definitions specify a lack of external rewards for altruistic behaviors.  Even when not immediately obvious, altruism is often rewarded in various ways (see above).  When there is no tangible reward, feeling good about oneself can be rewarding.  Regardless of whether an act is “true” altruism, there are many psychological studies that document the conditions under which people are more likely to help.
  1. Helping is more likely when the recipient is clearly in need.
  2. Helping is more likely when the giver feels personal responsibility for reducing the other person’s distress.
  3. A person with a high level of empathic concern is likely to help regardless of how many bystanders are around.

The Good Samaritan mosaic by Fr Marko Rupnik

The up-side of helping: volunteerism is strongly related to current and future health and well-being.
  • Older adults who volunteered were higher in life satisfaction and will to live, and lower on measures of depression, anxiety, somatization.
  • A 30-year study of the physical health of mothers found that 52% of those who did not volunteer experienced a major illness, compared to 36% of those who did.
  • A 4-year study of people 55 and older found that those who volunteered for two or more organizations had a 63% lower likelihood of dying.  Controlling for prior health status indicated that volunteerism accounted for a 44%reduction in mortality.
  • Research supports the idea that altruistic acts bring out happiness but it also works in the opposite direction: happier people are also kinder.

Philemon and Baucis offered complete hospitality to Zeus and Hermes in disguise, despite being paupers

When too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing:
 
  • Although positive effects of helping were still significant, one study of volunteers found that feeling overwhelmed by others’ demands had an even stronger negative effect on mental health.
  • While generous acts make people feel good about themselves, it is also important for recipients of assistance to appreciate—and show that their appreciation—for kindness and help.
  • Research indicates that a conscious focus on gratitude led to reductions in negative affect and increases in optimistic appraisals, positive affect, offering emotional support, sleep quality, and well-being for the grateful person.
  • Volunteer burn-out is especially common in high-stress positions, such as volunteer firefighters and medical providers at refugee camps.

Altruism is an important moral value for virtually all of the world’s religions:
  • Jews practice tzedakah, righteous behavior, providing support to make the world a more just place

  • Daya (compassion) and Daan (chairty) are two of the fundamental teachings of Hinduism

  • As part of aparigraha (non-attachment), Jains give away possessions and harm no living creature

  • Many Christian churches still practice tithing, donating 10% of all earnings

  • One of the five primary tenets of Islam is zakat, giving to charity

  • Sikhs practice seva, which is unselfish and unbiased aid to all

  • Buddhism teaches kindness toward all beings

Bottom line for writers: helpful characters are a good option, but be clear in your own head who, why, and under what circumstances the person helps.

 

Belisairius Begging for Alms by Jacques Louis David

PREJUDICE: WHAT IT IS, WHAT IT ISN’T

Posted on by vlaw759

Is fear of grey people racism or able-ism?

Prejudice is generally defined in one of two ways: 

 

1)  A preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.  This is the broadest definition and allows for being biased in a positive direction (such as assuming that harpists are poised and elegant).  Wikipedia goes a step further, saying an affective feeling towards a person based on that person’s perceived group membership.

Deborah Henson-Conant

2)  An unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reasons; unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature (like thinking all wrestlers are vulgar and uncouth), regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group.

Prejudice is one of the root causes of human conflict.  Conflict, in turn, can result in crime, war, systemic repression, and mass murder.  Writers note: anything that creates conflict between characters or between a character and society can be used in your writing.

 

Where prejudice comes from:
 

1) We tend to take on the attitudes—including prejudices—of the social groups to which we belong.  Social groups include gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, religion, sexual orientation, profession, etc., etc., etc.  Adopting the attitudes of one’s social groups, including family, is often a means of fitting in and being liked.  Thus, prejudice may serve a social adjustive function.

Zebras always vote the same way in local elections.

2) Sometimes assuming a host of characteristics based on knowing one is cognitively efficient.  We don’t have to spend time gathering information or even stopping to think.

 

Cartoon by Dan Allison

3) And sometimes, prejudice serves an ego-defensive function.  If simply by being who we are we can feel superior to whole groups of people—e.g., all women, all blacks, all immigrants, all yellow ducklings—it helps counterbalance negative information about oneself (such as being chronically unemployed, ugly, or unpopular).

 

Like other attitudes, prejudice has cognitive, affective, and behavioral components.
 
  • Cognitive: overgeneralized beliefs or stereotypes.  E.g., Yankees fans are arrogant and obnoxious.
  • Affective: prejudice, feelings about people that could be positive but are more often negative.  For example, I hate Yankee fans.  They make me angry.

(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

  • Behavioral: the treatment of others.  When negative, it is discrimination, and may lead to excluding, avoiding, or biased treatment of group members.  Example: I would never hire or become friends with a person if I knew he or she were a Yankees fan.
Although people can hold positive stereotypes, prejudices, and discriminatory actions based on group membership—for example, giving preferential treatment to people who are like themselves—it behooves us to focus on the negative because that is what is most problematic.

 

“How It Works” by xkcd

First impressions: When meeting new people, we automatically note race, gender, and age because these social categories provide a wealth of information about the individual—albeit, based on stereotypes.

 

Categories of bias: Racism, sexism, ageism, sexual orientation, nationalism, class-ism, religious discrimination, linguistic discrimination, and more.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy: An expectation held by a person about how another person will behave, which leads to treating the person according to our expectations.  The treatment can influence the person to act according to our stereotypic expectations, thus confirming the original stereotypic beliefs.  (Think teacher expectations, employer expectations, etc.)

 

Confirmation Bias: Paying more attention to information that is consistent with our stereotypic expectations than to information that is inconsistent with our expectations..

 

In-groups and Out-groups: An in-group is a group we see ourselves as belonging to, involving a strong sense of belonging and emotional connection that leads to in-group bias and preferences.  Out-groups are seen as different in fundamental ways, less likable, often resulting in discrimination.  When an in-group’s goals are delayed or thwarted, an out-group is often blamed.  This is scape-goating.
 
Bottom line for writers: stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination can define characters and situations.  Think thoughts, affects, and actions and how each can work with POV and plot.

 

Species-ism?